In Too Deep
by Translucent Darkness
Summary: [Discontinued] People are after Chloe because of information she uncovered. Now it's up to Lex, Clark, and Lana to save her and help her stop them. ChLex, CLana.
1. Missing

A/N: Okay, I know I should be finishing my other stories, but I had an idea that I couldn't leave hanging. Please R&R!

Disclaimer: If I owned Smallville, this would be an episode, not on fanfiction.

* * *

Chapter 1: Missing

Lex Luthor, speeding down the road in his shiny silver Porsche, quickly dialed a number into his cell phone. Lifting it to his ear, he heard someone answer, "Hello."

Lex recognized the voice right away. "Hello, Mrs. Kent. It's Lex. Is Clark there?"

"No, he isn't, Lex," Martha replied. "He had to go to the Talon and then to the Torch. You'll probably miss him at the Talon, but I bet you can head him off at the Torch."

"Thanks, Mrs. Kent."

"No problem, Lex." Lex then closed his cell phone and set it aside. Grabbing the steering wheel with both hands, he made a quick u-turn, not without the squeaking tires and skid marks. Lex then drove off to the school

* * *

Lex pulled into the school parking lot, the crow on the Smallville High sign glaring at him menacingly. If it had been a raven he would have taken it as a sign to turn around and head back to the mansion, but Poe didn't write a poem about crows, so he disregarded it. The school was dark, but Lex noticed a bright red bug sitting in the parking lot. He pulled up beside it and smiled, he might be able to have a round of verbal judo with Chloe before Clark arrived.

Lex exited his car and slowly strode up to the school. He opened the front doors and entered the dimly lit corridor. He was walking down the hallway toward the Torch office when something grabbed his arm. Before he could find out what had him, he was roughly pulled into an empty classroom. Once inside the room, Lex turned around to see Chloe quietly closing the door and then peaking through the thin vertical window. "Chloe, what-"

"Shhhh!" she said indignantly. "They're coming this way."

Lex walked toward her. "Who's com-" Lex was silenced once again, this time by Chloe's hand. Lex became slightly angry. _Nobody_ treated him like this. He was about to say so when he heard voices outside of the door.

"God, where is that, bitch! I don't even want to think about what's gonna happen if we don't come back with her!" a gruff voice said.

"Shut up! We're never gonna find her with you yelling!" another, equally frightening voice put in. Lex glanced at Chloe. Her slightly shaking hands belied her determined face. She was scared, but she was not going to show it.

"Why do we need _her_ anyway?" the first voice from outside the door said.

"She knows too much."

"Yeah, but why don't we just kill her? Why take her? The boss can get plenty of prostitutes and junkies for the experiments." Chloe's heart raced. _Kill_?_ **Experiments**_? Chloe could no longer hide her fear. Her breathing became rapid and shallow.

Lex watched Chloe as the men outside the door conversed. _What the hell were they going to do to her?_ he thought. _She's definitely in way too deep._ Chloe became more agitated with their words, but she never lost the determined mask.

"We need someone who hasn't lived four years with coke in their system. Besides, I checked. Nobody is _really _gonna miss her. Sure they'll look for her, but my guess is they'll give up after two weeks. Nobody cares about a nosey reported."

Chloe's stony façade vanished, replaced by a look of hurt. _Is that true?_ she thought. _Would my friends really not care?_

Lex glanced at Chloe. He took in her pained expression and thought, _Oh God, Chloe, don't listen to them._

"Yeah, but isn't she friends with Lex Luthor? He doesn't give up on anything," the first voice pointed out.

The second voice laughed. A cold, harsh laugh, void of any real humor. "I wouldn't call them friends. From what I hear, the bitch has been a pest to him since the first time he met her. He'll be _glad_ she's gone." Lex's face flushed. _How dare they say that! If only they knew. If only they knew how much he enjoyed the playful debates with the beautiful reporter. Wait _beautiful_? Did he just think of her as beautiful?_ Lex looked to Chloe. She was looking at him, her eyes large and wet, tiny tears streaking her face. She looked confused, sad. Lex wanted to reach out and hold her in his arms, but she quickly turned away and wiped the tears off her face, pretending they were never there to begin with. Lex sighed; she shared his fear of showing emotions. The voices of the two men slowly faded as they turned into another hallway and disappeared.

"Chloe," Lex began, not really sure what to say.

Chloe didn't leave him room to talk. "Come on," she said. "We need to get out of here." Chloe quietly opened the door. Lex grabbed her hand.

"Chloe, what they said wasn't true. They-"

"Not now, Lex." Lex sighed. She didn't believe him. Lex silently followed her out into the hall. Chloe began walking quickly the opposite way the men had gone. "We can go out through the back doors," she explained. Lex followed her. Chloe and Lex quickly turned at the sound of footsteps behind them.

"Hey, there she is!" one of the men yelled. They both turned around and ran down the corridor as one of the men raised some sort of gun. Chloe stopped and turned to Lex as she heard him cry out. A tranquilizer dart was sticking out of the back of his neck. Lex fell to the ground. Chloe knelt down next to him. "Please, Lex," she quietly pleaded. "Don't leave me." Her face was the last thing he saw before slipping into unconsciousness.

* * *

Clark and Lana were in Clark's old red truck on their way to see Chloe. They each had articles to give her. Clark and Lana were dating, but Chloe said that she didn't mind as long as they got their articles in _on time,_ and that they didn't forget about her. As Clark pulled into the school parking lot, he immediately noticed Lex's car. "I wonder what Lex is doing here?" Clark asked no one in particular.

Lana answered, "Looking for you, I think. He was looking for you earlier today." Clark parked the truck, and he and Lana headed to the school. As soon as they entered the building, they noticed an unconscious Lex lying on the floor. They ran over to him. Lana knelt beside him and gingerly began tapping his cheek. "Lex," she said softly, "Lex."

Clark had a slightly different approach. Clark shook Lex and yelled, "LEX!" That woke him.

"Chloe?" Lex mumbled, opening his eyes. Clark gave him an odd look. _How could he ever confuse my voice and face with Chloe's?_ Clark thought. Clark was startled when Lex sat up, his eyes wide. "Chloe!" he yelled.

"No," Lana said softly, trying to calm the distraught man. "It's Lana and Clark."

"No," Lex said, shaking his pounding head. "Where's Chloe?" he asked.

"I don't know," Clark answered.

"Oh my God!" Lex exclaimed. "They took her!"

* * *

A/N: Don't worry everything will be explained in due time. Sorry about the shortness; the next chapter will be longer. 


	2. Coded

A/N: It many seem a little Nancy Drew, but this is Chloe were talking about, she likes mysteries. It will seem less Nancy Drew-like in the next chapter.

Disclaimer: Check out chapter one.

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Chapter 2: Coded 

"Who took Chloe?" Clark asked, now very worried.

Lex jumped up and began looking in the adjacent classes and hallways. "Those men!" he answered.

"What men?" asked Lana, thinking her friend was hallucinating.

Lex sighed heavily at not finding Chloe hiding away. He leaned against the wall and slowly slid down it so that he was sitting. "The men that knocked me out. They were after Chloe; I don't know why."

"Lex," said Lana, "tell us exactly what happened." Lex then commenced to relay the story to the two frightened teens. When he had finished, Lana thought for a moment, and then said, "We need to call the police."

Clark nodded. Lex stood. "You two do that; I'm going to call Gabe."

* * *

An hour and a half later, Clark parked his truck in his family's driveway. He turned off his truck and sat staring out the side window. He couldn't believe it. Chloe had finally gotten in too deep, and he wasn't there to save her. Clark replayed the last two hours in his head. After the police had arrived, he, Lex, and Lana had told the police everything they had seen. Lana took Gabe home after about a half an hour, he couldn't handle it. Clark was just glad Lex had been there; he would make sure the police didn't drag their feet. Clark dejectedly exited his car, and made his way to his house.

* * *

The next morning, Clark awoke to his mother shaking him. Clark groaned and covered his head with his pillow. "What time is it?" he mumbled.

"Eight o'clock," Martha replied.

Clark suddenly sat straight up in bed. "_Eight o'clock!_ I have to go to school!" Clark jumped out of bed and was about to run to the bathroom when Martha stopped him.

"School's closed today," Martha explained. "It's still a crime scene."

_Crime scene?_ Clark thought. Then the events of the previous night came back to him like a strong punch in the stomach. "Chloe!" he whispered.

Martha looked at her son sadly. "Lex called," she said. "He was able to get the video from the hallway in which Chloe was taken. He thought you might like to see it. Lana's on her way there."

Clark nodded and began getting dressed.

* * *

Clark arrived in Lex's study and saw Lex and Lana talking solemnly. When Lex saw Clark, he stood. "Hi, Clark. I've got the video set up." He turned to a large TV, and turned it on. He then pressed play on the VCR. 

On the video, there was a dim, grim-looking corridor. Lex Luthor strode down the hallway. Chloe peeked out from a dark classroom and grabbed Lex, pulling him inside. After a few moments, two rough-looking men came onto the screen. One of the men was clean-shaven with shoulder-length, greasy hair. He wore a loose shirt, concealing his lanky body. He was also carrying some sort of gun. The other man was bald with a goatee. He was wearing a tight shirt, showing off his abnormally large muscles. He did not carry a gun, but he was definitely the more frightening of the two. His eyes shone, even on the tape, with a kind of inner cruelty. After a couple of minutes, the men walked out of view of the tape.

"Do the police know who they are?" Clark asked.

"No." Chloe and Lex reappeared from the classroom. They could see tears staining Chloe's usually bright face. Chloe pulled Lex down the hall, the opposite way the men had gone. Seemingly out of nowhere, a tranquilizer dart zoomed across the screen and hit Lex who fell to the ground. Chloe ran to him. She knelt beside him for a moment, before standing. She shifted the piece of paper she was holding from her left hand to her right hand and attempted to pull Lex to safety with her. Chloe looked down the corridor to where the men must have been. Sheer panic spread across her face. If it hadn't been a video, Clark would have reached out and held her. Chloe looked down at Lex. She knelt beside him, leaned down, and kissed him lightly on the lips.

Clark grinned and turned to Lana. She was smirking, too. They both glanced at Lex (the real Lex, not the one on the video). His eyes were wide and his cheeks were slightly red. Clark would have laughed if he wasn't so worried about Chloe. He had _never_ seen Lex blush. They turned back to the video. Chloe had stood and was running down the hallway. The men appeared on the screen and shot at Chloe. She was hit and went down hard. Lana whimpered, imagining the pain her friend must have been in just before she passed out. The men walked over to Chloe, picked her up, and left.

"I guess that's it," Lex said, finding it more than a little hard to talk.

As he was about to turn off the VCR, Clark said, "Wait." Lex turned to Clark, slightly confused. "Rewind it," Clark demanded. Lex hit the rewind button. After a few moments, Clark said, "Stop." It was the moment that Chloe had kissed Lex.

"Clark!" Lex exclaimed.

"No, listen, Chloe had a piece of paper in her hand, then she kissed you, and it was gone," Clark explained.

"What happened to it?" Lana asked.

"Look," said Clark, pointing to her right hand. Her hand was slightly in Lex's coat pocket. "She slipped it into your pocket."

Lex now had conflicting emotions. He was happy about this new piece of information, but he was also slightly sad that the kiss was simply a cover for her other action.

"Lex?" Lana broke Lex out of his thoughts.

He stood. "Let me go get that coat." Lex left the study. Clark and Lana gave each other a knowing smile.

A few minutes later, Lex returned with a note in his hand. "You were right, Clark. But I don't know what it means. It's just a bunch of numbers."

Lana perked up at this. "Numbers?" she asked, grabbing the note. It read: 252 402 654 284 452 736 91 139 230 174 270 444 307 489 796 31 47 78 252 398 650 121 193 314 53 77 130 304 486 790 65 105 107.

Lana smiled widely. "It's a code," she clarified.

"A code?"

"Yeah, Chloe created it last year for all of her sensitive information."

"Why didn't she tell me about it?" Clark asked, slightly offended.

Lana smiled again, "It's a sister thing." Clark rolled his eyes.

"Do you know what it says?" Lex inquired.

"Well, I can translate it. It's a simple matrix code."

"That's great if you know the matrix."

Lana seemed a little put off. "Of course I do."

Clark interrupted. "Wait, I thought Chloe wasn't very good at math."

Lana laughed. "Well, she's no Clark Kent, but she can do a simple matrix equation." Clark blushed. Lana turned to Lex. "Can I use you calculator?"

"Of course. What is the matrix?"

"A common pattern," Lana answered, beginning to type on the calculator.

Lex thought for a moment. "The Fibonacci Sequence?" he guessed.

Lana looked at him oddly. "How did you know?"

"The pattern may be completely natural, but it definitely belongs on Chloe's 'Wall of Weird'."

Lana just smiled, and Clark chuckled softly to himself. Lana typed the following matrix into the calculator:

1 1 2  
35 8  
13 21 34

Lana then carefully decoded Chloe's message. Once she had the new sequence, she assigned each number its corresponding letter (Space is 0, A is 1, B is 2, etc.).

Lex and Clark stood nervously while Lana worked. Eventually, she squealed. Clark and Lex ran to her. "I've got it!" she said.

"What does it say?"

Lana read the message, "'Look under loose board in closet'."

"What closet?" Clark inquired.

"Chloe's closet?" Lex volunteered.

Clark shook his head. "Chloe has carpet in her room, not wood."

Something dawned on Lana. "In her room, yeah, but there are extra storage areas in the back of the closets, and they have the original wood floors."

Clark almost jumped. "Let's go," he shouted as he dashed out the door to Lex's study.

* * *

A/N: Don't worry; we'll see Chloe in the next chapter! The Fibonacci Sequence is a famous pattern that is found in the arrangement of petals on flowers, the shape of seashells, and even the arrangement of stars on galaxies. I know I'm a math geek, but some of the stuff is just so darn interesting. 


	3. Clarity

A/N: If anyone is wondering, this takes place during Season 3.

Disclaimer: I don't own SV or the song "So Eager" by Taproot which is used in this chapter.

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Chapter 3: Clarity

Chloe awoke to a blinding light. Her head was pounding and the light only made it worse. Chloe attempted to lift her hands and move her legs, but they wouldn't move. They felt too heavy. Chloe opened her mouth to call for help, but her tongue was also too heavy to move. Chloe could hear beeping and could sense the myriad of needles pumping chemicals into her blood. She heard someone yell, "Hey, she's awake!" She could tell the person was standing right next to her, but the voice seemed to be coming from a million miles away.

Another voice responded, "Well, then, put her out again." A person who was no more than a vague shadow against the brightness of the light leaned over her. She could see the needle injecting something into her body, and the last thought she had before the drug took over, was that she was going to kick to the owner of that voice where it hurts the most.

* * *

Lex's Porsche pulled into the driveway of Chloe's house. Lex, Lana, and Clark walked up to the house, and Lana pulled out her key. Before she opened the door, she turned to Lex and Clark. "Be quiet while we're in here. Chloe's dad is still asleep. It was a long night last night." They nodded in understanding. Lana opened the door. As they entered, they saw Gabe asleep on the couch. He was still wearing the clothes from the day before. They slipped past him and headed up the stairs.

Lana led them into Chloe's room. She immediately headed over to the closet and began throwing out shoes, clothes, and the occasional teddy bear to reach the back. Lex and Clark let Lana rummage while they looked at the room that simply screamed Chloe. Lex was studying a picture of Pete and Chloe while Clark examined her CD player. The 'pause' button was flashing. Intending to turn it off to save energy, Clark accidentally pressed the 'play' button. Loud music filled the room:

_Save us from ourselves  
__We're at a loss of words while preaching that we can't be heard_

"Clark!" Lex yelled over the music. "Turn it off!"

_The image staring back at you is what you hate  
__You don't truly think forgiveness is on the way_

"I'm trying!" Clark responded.

_Seven years you lost for breaking one mistake  
__Wake up, play dumb, wake-_

Lana had walked over and turned it off for him. Tears had filled her eyes. Chloe always played her music when she worked late at night so that she wouldn't be lonely. Lana had missed hearing the faint murmur of it while she was falling asleep the night before. Hearing it now only brought back the painful memory of last night's silence.

"We need to stop playing around," Lana scolded, fighting back tears. Lana returned to the closet and began fighting through the clutter once again.

Lex glanced over at Clark who was mentally beating himself for making his girlfriend cry. After a few moments of awkward silence, Lana poked her head out from the closet. "I found it."

Lex and Clark looked at the door leading to the tiny crawlspace. "Open it," Lex ordered. Lana opened it. It was completely empty on the inside. Stale air rushed at them making Lex and Lana cough. Lana slowly crept in and began pulling on each board. The tenth board she checked pulled up.

Lana smiled widely. "Found it!" Lana reached her hands down into the hole and recovered two CD cases. One CD was labeled '1', and the other was labeled '2'. Lana crawled back out and handed the CD's to Lex. "Let's put them in her computer."

Lex walked over to Chloe's computer and inserted disk one. There were two files: 'map' and 'watch me'. Lex opened 'watch me'. It was a video. Lex pressed play. Chloe came onto the screen with her trademark smile.

_Chloe: Hey! If you're watching this it probably means that something's happened to me and you decided to play the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, a.k.a. Pete, Clark, and Lana._

Lex frowned. Chloe hadn't mentioned him. Clark and Lana glanced at their bald friend, but his face was unreadable.

_You're probably wondering what's going on. Remember that spring break when my dad took me with him to that business thing in New Mexico, and how I said that it was completely boring, well, I lied_

Lex gripped the side of his chair. New Mexico. Is that where she is?

_I found something. I found something huge. I was exploring a ghost town when I stumbled onto a secret lab, a very secret lab. And they don't like it that I know about it. You're probably thinking that I'm just crazy and paranoid, but the fact that you're watching this just proves that famous statement that just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't after me. With all that in mind, you now have two choices: one, take out this CD, destroy it along with the other one, and forget that any of this ever happened; or continue listening._

Chloe on the tape sat there for a while, obviously waiting for her listeners to make up their minds. Lex, Clark, and Lana stayed absolutely still, waiting for Chloe to continue.

_Chloe: Well, you've obviously chosen option two. So, I'll explain everything. In this lab there were a lot of tables, and on the tables there were creatures. Odd creatures. I mean, definitely wall of weird. They were huge and all different. Some had fangs, and others had spikes, and some were scaly and odd colored. It was some sort of a mutant army. I don't know what's up with the lab; I don't really know anything, just what I saw._

_Now, I don't know if the lab belonged to the government or some company, that's why I haven't said anything. If it is a government lab, going to the police wouldn't really help. It seems my only option is to storm into the United Nation waving the evidence. But, no one would listen to me, now would they?_

_You're probably wondering what evidence I'm talking about. Disk two is all of the information I was able to download off of their computers in the time I had. It's encrypted, but I'm sure there's some damaging evidence on there._

_On disk one there is a map that marks the ghost town where I found the entrance to the lab. There is a series of caves that have an opening in the cellar of the old general store. I followed the caves to an observation room of the lab. You can do that to see what I saw, which I shouldn't recommend, in light of what probably happened to me. You still have a choice to destroy these disks and forget everything I told you. Whatever you choose to do, good luck._

With that, the recording ended, and Chloe's smiling face disappeared from the screen.

* * *

A/N: I'm ending this here, because I didn't want to overload you with information. Please tell me if I'm going too fast. 


End file.
